


She Hates Him, She's Sure of It. At Least, She Was Sure of It.

by WhumpTown



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alec Hardy and His Broken Heart, Ellie Miller really hates/loves Alec Hardy, Hardy/Miller Family, Hurt Alec, Surgery, pacemaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-06-25 16:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19749148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhumpTown/pseuds/WhumpTown
Summary: "No more broken heart."Episodes come far and few between, nightmares send him into wheezing fits but they don't nearly kill him anymore. One episode, one he can't even remember, ruins everything they'd fought for. He finds himself on the table again but this time, it's not nearly the same.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Olivia Coleman and David Tennant are just phenomenal people and I love and cherish them dearly

Hard fingers are grasping at his neck, loosening the tie around it. Breathing doesn’t come easily, the water clouds his vision, covers his mouth. “Don’t you die on me you stupid, fucking knob,” feeling comes back to his body. A sting quickly follows, she’d slapped him. Now conscious of his own body, he realizes he’s laying on his back and trembling like a wet dog. 

“What the hell were you think-” her chattering teeth move away from him, coming back with another blurry blob to stand over his shoulder. It takes his sluggish brain a moment, between a fresh breeze of cold, salty air whipping their clothes about and Miller shouting at him, he sees the Spiderman on the tiny trainers right beside his head.

“Wee Fred?” Even with his heart racing faster than what would be considered minimally healthy and the steady onslaught of the cold rain beating down on his face, his voice is soft, nearly steady as he focuses his attention on the silently sobbing tot. He tries to sit up, paternal instincts making his arms itch to wrap around the lad and hold him close. Elle proves to be stronger and pushes him back down.

“Sit still you wanker,” he can feel her nimble fingers disassembling his dress shirt. “Can you stand, we need to get out of this rain?” She’s right above him again, blocking his view of Fred. He nods, deciding he can do just about anything if that means getting wee Fred out of the rain.

Leaning most of his weight against her, they manage to get back in the house. Fred’s now louder sobs tail them. Hardy fights to look back, twisting his body until it hurts, wringing a cough from his thin frame, but he sees wee Fred. There is snot and tears streaming down his face, Ellie’s orange coat wrapped around his tiny body, and he hadn’t noticed before but his little fist is clutching Hardy’s soaked trousers. 

“Wee-” he cuts himself off with a cough, nearly sending them both to the ground,” wee Fred, Miller. He’s wet.” He sounds rather like a drowned rat himself. She doesn’t pay his distress any mind, she drags him into his little blue house and deposits him on his bed. Soaked to the bone, she pulls the rest of his shirt off and starts to work at his trousers until he manages to control his body enough to block her fingers with his own. “Get wee Fred, I-I can get my-” he can’t manage the sentence, his own teeth chattering almost as bad as hers. 

His constant ‘wee’ Fred shite is adorable, she won’t lie. The first time she’d heard him call her son that she’d felt a swell of adoration for him, her usual annoyance dying. However, at the bank the other day, a teller had asked what Fred what his name was. In exchange for his name, he stood to earn a lolli. He’d beamed up at the woman, a girl not much older than Daisy, and told her his name was ‘wee Fred!’. 

It drew a lot of questions for her. Yet, she didn’t right much mind that Fred thought that was his name. It did draw attention to how much time her children spend around the grumpy Scot. Her father would pitch a fit if he ever heard the Scottish slang that Tom picked up from Hardy. 

“Awec?” Fred trembles in his little joggers, his eyes full of big tears. His lower lip trembles harder when she doesn’t immediately answer him. She sees a bit of Alec in the way that Fred pushes her hands away when she doesn’t answer his plea for his ‘uncle awec’. 

“Fred, Alec is getting dressed.” She manages to get him out of his clothes, slipping one of Alec’s smaller shirts over his head of curls. She pats at his bum, glad that his knickers mad it dry through the incident. Loo training was almost a breeze with Fred, especially if Alec was around to sing the tot praises. But she could understand an accident in the face of all that had just happened. Especially given that she hadn’t had him try to use the loo before they left the house on their walk here.

“Awec!” She’s still got an arm around him, trying to figure out how to tie the shirt to stop it from getting caught around his little legs when Alec emerges from his bedroom. She halts Fred quick movement, not sure Alec wants to deal with the full bodily projectile of her tot at the moment. Especially given that Fred’s going to want to be held and Alec hasn’t had the time to collect himself enough for that. He doesn’t wat to tell Fred no to comfort like that.

At least he’s dressed.

“Wee Fred,” Alec smiles down at the tot, burring his right in his head of curls. Ellie frowns at the protective way Alec holds his left to his chest, it makes fear burn in her chest. She doesn’t want to call 999 but if his chest pain doesn’t stop something could be wrong with the pacemaker or worse. 

Ellie tries to keep her voice calm,” Alec, you should probably go lay down. No sense in moving about like this after an incident, you know that.” She knows exactly why he’s up and about. She can see the pain lines in his face, the way his hands are still trembling, and the tender way he regards the entirety of his left side. He’s trying to be valiant for Fred. 

Alec smiles at her, something along the lines of pathetic but he trudges on to his kitchen anyway. “Ah, wee Fred, I think I’ve got crisp hidden in the pantry,” he offers Fred his right hand, extending it behind himself trusting that the tot would latch on and follow. 

Ellie stays behind. She collects Fred’s clothes off the ground, shaking her head at the sizeable puddle it leaves. She leaves it behind, deciding she’ll bring out a towel from the loo to fix it after she’s changed her own clothes. She’s got a change of clothes at Alec’s. She can’t pinpoint when they made there way over here. She leaves them in his top drawer and instead steals clothes from him. 

The shirt she finds, one she knows to be his favorite, is frayed at the collar. She runs her finger over the material and smiles when she realizes what it’s from. Fred went through a stage where he wouldn’t be put to bed by anyone but Alec. On most nights, he wanted Alec to follow the same steps as Ellie. Which meant an hour in the rocking chair by his little bed reading stories. Fred also took to sucking his thumb and rubbing material between his fingers.

The first time she saw him do it to someone’s ear he did it to Alec. There was another fair happening behind his house and he’d told her to bring her boys over for some rides. Halfway through the night a town over starting letting off fireworks and Fred found the best seat in the house atop Hardy’s shoulders. She’d looked back and found Fred resting his head atop Alec’s, his thumb between his lips, and his other hand rubbing at Alec’s ear. 

Later that evening, he’d told her that he wasn’t even sure when Fred starting doing it. It was just something he did every time Alec let the boy get close enough. He told her that had also taken to doing it to his shirt collars. He didn’t mind though.

“Mumma!” The panic in her little one’s voice makes her jerk to attention. She drops the collar of the shirt and steps out of the room, colliding with Fred as she does so. She scoops him from the ground, attention going to making sure he’s not hurt but he’s already wiggling his little body away, shouting her name again. “Mumma come,” she puts him down and he grabs her hand and pulls her to where he’d been with Alec. This time it's her heart doing the tricky stuff as fear eats up her sternum. “Mumma, Awec’s hurt!”

This time she scoops up Fred and doesn’t worry with him when he gets mad at her. She comes to the kitchen, her breathing faster than what’s healthy, and finds her-her _Alec_ on the floor. 

He’s paler, sweat beating down his face. “Somethings-” his chest jerks in a way that she recognizes in the worst way. She’d see it go off before, watched his face go from pale, ashy in color to flushed with pink as he gasps at the sudden change. The doctors had explained this reaction, explained just how bad he’d let himself get for a shock like that to be delivered as a default setting. “Somethings wr-wrong!” 

His hands are clutching his t-shirt, his legs moving him so he can writhe as another shock is delivered. His chest pitches in the air and his twist in a grimace, a shout only contained to keep Fred from crying again. “El-Ellie!” It goes off as he’s trying to speak, knocking the breath out of him and for a moment his eyes lose their piercing focus. 

“Fred get the phone!” She gathers Alec up in her arms, for once his thin skeleton coming in handy for something, and shushes him gently threw another shock. When it’s delivered he shouts, a sob breaking his lips and she presses a kiss to his forehead. 

His resolve is broken. Each shock is debilitating and the machine in his chest ventures to life-threatening instead of saving. 

She calls the hospital.

Her voice is frantic. She begs them to come quickly, each shock coming closer to killing him. She can't lose him. So tells them, the paramedics that come bounding up the stairs to her house, she's his wife, maybe it's the swell of tears in her eyes or Fred's heartbroken sobs but they buy it.

\---------------------

"I told them I was your wife," his hand is cold in her own. His long fingers holding her hand back in a limp grip, his eyes remain attentive. Dulled, she can see the brightness in his eyes has dimmed. No wisecrack remarks, grunts, or even groans form in his mouth. He’s complacent, pumped to the gills with pain medicine. 

She looks away for a moment, her strength crumbling under the far-away glaze in his eyes. The worst part is, she knows he’s listening to what she’s saying but he’s so out of his mind that he can’t _think_ past the medicine to talk to her. So she takes his hand in hers once again, brushing the other through his thin hair,” it’s just a few more days, okay? They’re going to fix you up and I’ll take you home.”

Alec moves his head, a dazed shake that dislodges the oxygen canal under his nose. He opens his mouth and it strikes her just how poorly he is, his breathing taking a serious beating without the help of the thin tubing. He gasps only once before easing himself with a clench of the sheets in his hand. “I-I,” he swallows thickly,” don’t want any more surgeries, Miller.”

Elle tightens her grip on his hand and decides to ignore him. She stands up and refuses to look him in the eyes. She fixes the canal, moving it back behind Alec’s ears and smoothing out his hair when the canal makes it stand oddly against his head. 

“Miller,” Alec’s heavy Scottish accent breaks through her mind, distracting her from her anger. Just not long enough. 

“God, I hate you,” she sits down unceremoniously into the chair by his bedside. “I hate you so much and all of this just really helps remind me.” She pushes his hand away not even sorry when he doesn’t have the strength to do much more than just let it fall limply back on the bed. “Stop looking at me, fuckwit.” 

Alec turns his head away, dragging his right hand against his thigh, pulling at the IV in his hand. It moves the pulse ox off his finger and the machines make it very clear he shouldn't have done that. Mildly yellow stats turn into question marks. Alarms go off around them and Ellie lets out a sigh before fixing what he's done.

"Quit moving about, yeah? You've agitated your hand and you're gonna have the nurses having to come in here and check on you." Her fingers probing the area of the IV, his hand a raw red from where he'd been rubbing it. "I'll tell them when I leave that it's bothering you."

She lets go of his hand and her face flushes. She stands, brushes at her clothes like her hands can wash the hospital away, and clears her throat. "Uhm, they're doing the surgery early, I'll be here at eight. Tess is bringing Daisy at twelve. Lucy is picking Tom up from park and Fred from the minders.” She looks at him for only a second before shifting her weight,” they’ll all be here when you wake up.”

Alec grunts, pushing himself up higher on his pillow. The small movement causes a small whimper to fight its way out of his mouth," they shouldn't. Ellie, we don't know if I'll-"

Ellie turns sharply to him," shut up! Don't even start with me, _Hardy_!" Her hands tremble at her side," you survived the first operation. Then, you had nothing and knowing you, you probably didn't even put up a proper fight." She points a finger at him, eyes sharp," so help me God, if you die-" She chokes on the word, eyes filling with tears," if you die and leave me to explain to your daughter, to my boys that we didn't matter enough for you to-to-"

Alec stares dumbly at her, lost for words. Ellie sniffles wiping her eyes," don't say anything, don't. Just-Just sleep, eat your dinner and don't give the nurses any shit, okay?" He can see the tears streaming down her face but nods his understanding. Something deep in his chest makes him want to reach out and take her hand, to take back the dumb things he says but he doesn’t get the chance.

She leaves him alone in the room. The white walls seem so much larger as they hover around him. She’d promised in the ambulance that she wouldn’t leave him. He’d been terrified, ready to let the miss firing pacemaker kill him in order to stay out of the hospital. As always, his voice of reason was the curly-haired mother of two and his best friend. 

Now, he’s even managed to push her away.

“DI Hardy?” A petite nurse sticks her head in the room, a shy smile on her lips when she sees that he’s awake. She pushes the door open and brings his food in,” if you don’t mind me poking about, your wife said the IV in your hand was bothering you so the Doc said I could move it to your elbow.” She looks down at her watch,” I brought you a light dinner, it should hold you over for the next 12 hours.”

The nurse doesn’t wait for a response from him and he wonders if it was other nurses or Ellie who informed her that’d he’d be like this. Silent, broody. Either way, she’s quick with her work. She’s hooking the IV back in before he realizes that she’s moved the bloody thing. 

As she leaves she pushes the food closer to the bed, in a position that he can now reach. The meager rations make him sick to his stomach, this could very well be last meal and for some nutrionsit, he’s going to have to choke down some kind of pale chicken looking mess. 

He eats what he can. Which is hardly anything at all and he knows they’ll threaten the feeding tube when he wakes up but he secretly hopes Ellie brings him grapes. A small twinge in his chest reminds him he might never get the chance. 

God, he hopes there’s a chance.


	2. Chapter 2

Seeing him the next morning in a cruel reminder of how well he’d been doing after the pacemaker. His thin shoulders had once again found the strength to hold themselves upright, alleviating the ache in his bones from being hunkered down. His long, lanky limbs seemed to always move. They found a life of their own, moving softly by his side when he speaks and legs running him in circles when he thinks.

Life. It was drawn into his lungs for the first time in upwards of two years and now it’s been exhaled. 

“Hey,” she comes in at eight, just like she promised. The door feels heavier this time when she pushes through it. Most likely, it’s the crushing feeling of guilt on her shoulders when she sees him all alone. 

He greets her from behind an oxygen mask, eyes unfocused and voice too soft to hear. His smile isn’t his when he showers her in one, it makes her skin break out in a cold sweat. She sees his lips form her name and she forces herself to settle into the chair by his side and take his hand.

The doctors had warned her about this before she’d come in. He’d had one of the infamous nightmares, one of the ones that staff at the hospital had seen in those moments of unconsciousness that they held him hostage before his first surgery. 

He’d woken himself up, unable to breathe through his panic. They tried to reason with him but his breathing took a sharp turn downhill and with a shuddering, terrified sob he fell unconscious again. His breathing didn’t get much better but they’d brought it back up with the help of the mask. 

They’d just forget to mention that all of that strength, the humor in his grumbling, his steadily tanning skin is gone. He’s pale, depleted by his inability to breathe. 

“You look like shit,” her hands shake so she holds his hand tighter. He smiles at her and she’s glad for whatever nonsense they’re pumping him full of. His breathing is labored, pathetic but he smiles at her like nothing wrong at all. “They said they’re bumping the surgery up, gonna take you back at 8:20.”

He just looks at her. 

She squeezes his hand.

“Oi,” the doctor steps in and smiles when he sees Ellie. “Mr. and _Mrs._ Hardy,” he’s young Ellie notes. His grin is very boyish but he hasn’t exactly proven he’s not up for the job. Ellie attempts a pour smile back. “Hiya! I hope you’re as cheerful as your old man here!”

It becomes very clear, very quickly that this Doctor aggravates Alec, she finds his thick sarcasm refreshing. His kind blue eyes are a contrast to Alec’s brown evaluating ones. The obviousness in the two jobs that they have is a shift. She likes it. 

“He always this grumpy or am I just special?” The Doc smiles at her and establishes just how comfortable he is in the hospital, with people. 

Ellie becomes that much more interested in finding out how Alec and this man will interact. “I’m afraid he’s always like this.” Then she remembers just what he’s for,” are you going to take him back now?” Fear grips her heart and in turn, she grips Alec’s hand tighter. 

Alec looks over at her. His eyes running along her face. Trying to soak in every last detail. 

The Doc nods his head,” yeah but in about five more minutes. The nurses are waiting for my go-ahead and they’re gonna come in and get him all changed and ready. I’m afraid you’ll have to step out for that.” He smiles at them again,” but I figured you’d like a moment with him before they get him all loopy.” He steps towards the door,” you have as long as you like.”

She pauses briefly as the door shuts behind the doctor. He'd said 'loopy' as if whatever Alec is now isn't that. It makes her heartbeat quickly in her chest.

Ellie has no idea what she’s supposed to say. There aren’t nearly enough words or even the right words to explain how much she needs him to get through this. That he can not leave and expect them to be okay. Who will take Tom to football practice and wear the team’s jersey? Who’s gonna read Fred bedtime stories and get all the voice right? Who’s going to paint the trim when she suddenly decided to paint the living room lavender?

Even then, is she allowed to tell him how empty rooms feel without him in it? How strong she feels if he’s there too? It’s not as simple as him dying and leaving a hole in their lives. It’s him dying and knocking their worlds out of loop. Another father figure gone. Her only friend-

“E-Ellie?” His voice breaks through her thoughts and it scares her. He’s terrified, she recognizes the tremble in his voice. Somehow he's managed to tug the mask off his face. He grips her hand tightly in his,” El, I-I don’t wanna die.” 

There isn’t a thing to do. Not a thing _she_ can do. It breaks her heart not being able to do a damn thing to heal his. So she comforts him in the way only she can, by acting like herself. “Well, don’t. A stubborn old bastard like you? You’ll get your dumb little heart box and you’ll be back on my sofa, drinking my tea, and splitting biscuits with Fred within the hour.”

Her conviction is misplaced but with all her heart she wants her words to be true. Looking at him, already deathly pale and sickly, she not sure all the love in her heart can bring him through a surgery he isn’t strong enough for. 

“Okay? So-So,” she steps closer to the bed, bending herself to hug him as well as she can. “So, just live.” Tears fall down her face and his arm wraps around her waist,” okay because we-because I need you, Alec. I just need you, okay?”

His hand tightens on her hip,” I need you too.”

It becomes the ‘I love you’ in a desperate moment. Ellie wipes the tears from her eyes, kisses his forehead, and promises him that she’ll be back in just a minute. She sees the numbers drop on his monitor but all she can do is rub his thin wrist. She’ll be back and she just has to trust he will be too.

\---------------------

“Daddy?” Daisy goes back first, utterly terrified since arriving in Broadchurch that morning. As promised, Tom was there to pick her up. He did nothing to ease her fear, no matter how hard he tried. He put up a good front, though. Had her convinced for half their trip that he was fine, that he wasn’t worried?

They pulled up to the hospital and Tom couldn’t- wouldn’t step in the doors.

 _“I’m just-I can’t do it, Daze,” his eyes meet hers before looking back out the window. “If he doesn’t… Our lives are over, can’t you see it? Mum, she can’t do this bullshit again. I’ve lost a father once…” he’d turned to her, accent thickening as tears fall from his eyes. “I just can’t. I can’t watch you and Fred lose one too._ ”

Daisy approaches his bedside with caution. She’s old enough now to understand some of the wonders of the world. She’s listened to Bruce Springsteen, his crisp American voice a horror to her Scottish father. Old enough now that she sees her parents faults and knows when someone’s lying. 

Turns out, growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. She wants to go back to when her dad was her hero when her mother could do no wrong, and she could find comfort in the strong arms of her father’s arms. She’s not sure what she’s done to deserve this but it’s cruel.

His skin is colder than she expects it to be.

She recoils and decides she can’t do this after all.

Ellie’s there instead. She takes his cold hand like she has so many times before and holds it carefully within her own. Brushing her thumb over his knuckles she waits. 

Fred was asleep when she left him with Daisy and Tom. Something had happened between the two teens. They’ve always been civil but Tom had never hugged Daisy, not by his own choice. She didn’t push the matter, with Fred putting up a fight she was just glad that Daisy could provide the correct comfort to calm him to sleep.

“N-No… grapes?” The pain medicine is wearing off, leaving him breathless once again. She won’t lie, his cheeks have regained color that had been previously bleached. He looks like himself despite the tiredness. 

She squeezes his hand,” afraid Fred ate them. He’s got my anxiety about him.”

He smiles at that,” eating his emotions.” He laughs, loopy but stopping suddenly when it hurts more than he expected. He grimaces,” h-how is he? The-The kids? Where are…” He hadn't meant to get himself all worked up but it seems he’s done it effortlessly. She’s right there in a flash, effortlessly calming him back down without even really realizing she’s doing it. 

When his pulse is back to one she deems reasonable, she leans over the bed and holds his hand close to her chest. Her voice is soft,” Fred’s sleeping. He’s got one of your damn suit jackets wrapped around him, snuggled in it like a blanket.” She clears her throat,” Uhm, Daisy, and Tom are just waiting. Didn’t want to-to…” 

Her mind helpfully provides the sobbing mess Daisy was when she came out of the room. Tears streaming down her face, her voice broken, and her hands trembling. 

Honestly, none of the kids had come back because they're all afraid.

"-t's okay," he moves on the bed, stifling a wince. The last surgery hurt but the meds kept him fairly floaty. He hadn't really needed the pain meds given to him. This time, he's not sure he's gonna be able to just toss the pills out. "El?"

She can't manage a comforting smile but she squeezes his hand," yeah?"

He smiles at her. It's his smile. It's not loopy, spacey. It really is him. He squeezes her hand this time. "I'm alive."

She laughs. It's deep within her chest and it makes tears spring to her eyes. She's so happy and he just soaks it up. He laughs too. It hurts but it's a good hurt and he wouldn't trade it for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking about another chapter? Maybe. Idk


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you're American and never had any sort of heart/pacemaker surgery so you don't actually know what doctors would prescribe or what foods are heart-healthy in Britain. Sorry, Alec, but bangers and mash is not good for your heart <3 My bad, chief

Fred won’t leave Alec’s side.

They visit every day. She’s sure they would kick her out most of the times but Fred is good for Alec. Fred’s perceptive eyes guilt Alec into picking at his meals, giving them his best shot no matter what is on his tray. They split whatever goodies that day serves whether it’s pudding or jello. His health doesn’t come bouncing back and he can’t get his weight back up but Fred is always eager to see him perform mundane tasks. The tot has the patience of a saint and it gets Ellie and Alec both through the days.

“Come on, Awec!” It takes two weeks for him to gain the strength to walk the halls of the hospital. Just getting to the door, without any aid four days after the surgery made Fred incredibly proud. He cheered and whooped louder than his mother. The boy’s praises made Alec blush and Ellie backed her child’s words. He thought his cheerleaders would get tired of their jobs eventually. He turns out to be very wrong.

“Look at you!” Ellie praises, Fred wiggling on her hip eager to see his uncle. This was the first time she’d come to the hospital and not find Alec in bed. They had fought hard to get here. Lots of cussing and angered panic on Alec’s half to gain the strength back that he’d lost. A part of him was certain he’d be too weak to ever walk. Luckily, he’s wrong about that too.

Alec waves at them, not nearly as eagerly as Ellie or Fred. He’s not supposed to be walking about on his own but he’d rather be at the risk of knocking himself out because he falls than having some hunky nurse palming up his arms. At least when Miller does it she loops their arms together and talks his ear off. Actually, never mind. He’d rather fall than deal with whatever headache she’d going-

Ellie attaches herself to his arm and directs him back to his room. They don’t need a lot to communicate, she sees the pallor of his skin, and the grump creasing around his eyes. It doesn’t matter if they dope him up, right now he needs a nap and a good cuddle from Fred. It always works like a charm. Fred already knows he’s on the case, he attaches himself to the sweatpants Alec’s wearing and fills the man in on Tom’s practices from the week. 

“Uncle Awec?” Fred sits on the hospital bed, his little body splayed out as he lays in the middle and rolls around in the sheets Alec’s left twisted up. He pays the adults little mind. Watching his mother wrangle Alec into a clean t-shirt is not something he’s interested in. 

Alec tries to push away Ellie’s hands as they attempt to fix his hair. “What is it, wee Fred?” Ellie ends up winning both the shirt and hair battle. So he sits in a clean shirt, the one she got him for Christmas that proclaimed in white letters ‘Worst Cop in Britain’, and with mostly fixed hair. He’s not more or less grumpy than before they got there.

Fred curls up against Alec. His mother had said that maybe today Alec could come home. While he can’t understand all that’s happened since Alec got an ouchy on his heart, he does notice a lot. His mommy cries a lot at night. Tom doesn’t eat breakfast anymore but his mommy also always burns the pancakes, Alec never burned them. He really hopes Alec comes home today if not for his mommy and Tom then for the pancakes.

Fred pushes himself between Alec and his mum. He wiggles until he’s comfortable against Alec,” momma says you’re coming home.” Alec hums in agreeance. “Will you come home today?”

\-----------------------

“As much as I like seeing that you’re listening to your doctors,” Ellie steps out onto her porch and finds Alec exactly where she’s left him. She does appreciate that he’s listening to her but she’s afraid that it’s only because he simply can’t move somewhere else on his own. “It’s a bit too cold to be out here all alone.” 

She pulls the throw blanket from the back of the couch around him, gently pulling it around his left shoulder. As she moves, her hand brushes against his and she feels just how cold his hands are. She shakes her head at him and pulls his hand into her lap. She rubs them, angry with herself for letting him sit out here all this time.

“You would have been fine,” his voice is rough and his hands shaky. In fairness, he hasn’t had enough sleep or food to be stronger. A weak heart and a weaker stomach, it’s why the nurses begged Ellie to make him stay to at least finish out his bag of saline. He had because Ellie knew too well why he needed it. “You know?”

Ellie turns his hand in hers, her fingers running along his long thin ones. He’s got large hands if he were stronger, built with more meat on his bones instead of thin and tall, he could hurt with these hands. Curiosity builds up in her and she runs her fingers along his and finds not even calluses from holding guns. She clears her throat,” what do you mean by that?”

He doesn’t pull his hand away, her fingers are slowly bringing back feeling to his. He knows hope is mostly lost for his left, he can’t feel much. They told him it was the pain medicine, it’ll keep him well enough to stand on his feet until he could get home. Now he’s home and he can’t even feel his heart. Not a single damn emotion, either. “If I’d died,” he feels silly when the words leave his mouth. A flash of heat up his arm forces his eyes shut as he breathes through it. “You would have been fine, the lot of you.”

Ellie scoffs fear that is misinterpreted as anger in her mind. She lets go of his hand but it stays in her lap. His head makes a lazy turn to look at her and it makes her madder. “Is that what you think?” Her own hands shake and she collects his hand again in her own. She holds it so gently and the anger melts away to the raw sadness she feels. “You think you just die and we’ll be fine?”

She can feel his heart beating, the pulse point in his wrist and she thumbs it so very carefully. Afraid one wrong move and it’ll stop. “Alec, you infuriate me. On a good day, I want to kick you off the cliffs and cuss and yell until you just disappear. You’re a knob.” She looks at him, long and hard for a moment. “I hate you, I hate you so much. I do, with nearly every fiber of my being but if you…”

She roughly wipes the tear threatening to fall. She sniffs and straightens herself, releasing his hand. “We wouldn’t be fine. I need you, don’t you remember that? You’re a sodding-sodding-” her voice breaks and her frown deepens with anger. “Just shut up okay? God, sodding fuckwit.” 

He chuckles and his chest is tight but nothing notable. Since the last pacemaker went off he hasn’t felt like himself. Now, sitting on Ellie’s porch, chilled from the crisp air, and with his best and only friend nearly seething mad with him… he feels normal. He feels like himself. Even if he feels like an arse but Ellie always reminds him he’s an arse.

“Get up,” she stands up and her tone is clipped but she’s gentle. She doesn’t get angry when his strength is depleted just by standing. Not even when she has to hold him up while she wraps the blanket closer around his body. She’s angry with him, he hasn’t forgotten, but she still gently brushes his fringe from his eyes and eases him on to the couch. “Don’t go mucking about, I’m going to your meds and I don’t want to go looking for you.”

He falls asleep before she gets back. She’s still angry but missing him when he’s not under her feet when she goes to the kitchen and puts on the kettle for tea. When she finds him, she tucks the blanket around him and adds another. He’s too thin and she’s afraid he’ll get cold. 

“Alec,” she gently rouses him, shaking his right shoulder. It doesn’t take much and his head bobs before limply falling to the side. “I need you to take your pills,” she doesn’t have to wait that long before he nods. He grimaces at the rawness of his throat and manages to wrangle his right arm out from underneath the blankets. 

She leaves him the glass of water and tucks the blankets back around him. 

“ ‘m not going anywhere, Miller.” He cracks an eye open to peer at her,” won’t even miss me.” 

She rolls her eyes and turns her back to head for her own room,” good because not even death can get you out of this friendship.” 

\-------------------- 

He kills her with those big, sad brown eyes. He wants so badly to jump back into his old rolls, to toss Fred about, go on walks, banter and grumble. He’s stuck… wherever, not strong enough to amble about the house on his own. He won’t admit it to the kids. Luckily, Tom and Daisy are caught up in their emotions and they don’t want to see the weakness. Fred takes advantage of Alec’s immobility, finds himself a cuddle buddy.

“Dad,” Daisy comes into the living room, hiding a smile behind her hand when she finds her father on the couch. That, in itself, is not that odd. He has to take it easy. Scar tissue around the old device made the healing time for this surgery longer. Added with the way in which the last device failed and it’s surprising he’s alive at all. So, when she comes into the living room and finds her grumpy and tired father cuddled up with Ellie’s youngest, it’s a happy little thing. 

Ellie finds them a moment later. There isn’t a smiling happy moment between them. For the first time, she breaks down. She falls apart right there and it’s heartbreaking because he’s right there. He’s alive. They can all see the way Fred’s little body lifts up with each inhale Alec takes. All the proof they need is right there and he’s holding Fred so tenderly in his arms. He’s okay.

“Ellie?” Daisy reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder and Ellie shakes her head. She holds her hands to her chest, finding mock comfort in the pressure of her knuckles against her chest. It takes her a long, broken moment but she gathers herself enough to hide her tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes. Daisy watches all of this with a twisted frown, one that would rival her father’s in regards to not liking something they’ve seen. “What the hell was that?”

Ellie shoots Alec and Fred a glance. The tot hasn’t moved in his sleep but at some point, Alec had wrapped a tighter arm around her son. Ellie motions for Daisy to follow her to the kitchen so Ellie can distract herself with tea. “I need you to promise me you won’t breathe a word of that to your dad. He’s upset enough thinking he’s putting me off.”

Daisy nods in the same way her father always does when she tells him things. Ellie wonders if perhaps his daughter has somehow been genetically passed his aura of trust. For a grumpy old git, she can tell Alec Hardy just about anything and she just knows he won’t tell anyone, ever.

“I promised myself I wasn’t losing him, you know?” She’s sure Daisy understands that much, the girl had bargained as well as she could in the hospital. Regurgitating facts like they could somehow save his heart. “It just hit me, him in there with Fred, that we were so close. That it was so much closer than nearly and I just don’t want to ever-" Her hand hovers above the mugs and tea. She just freezes because to him his death will just happen. His death is something that happens to everyone else. 

"I know." Daisy scratches at her nails, hiding her face with her long blonde hair. "He just acts like it was never that bad. Like he hasn't nearly died three times now-"

Ellie looks up. How does Daisy think it was only three times? She doesn't aim to upset the girl so she doesn't say anything. Doesn't bring it up that it was far more than three times. 

"Fred's hungry, " Alec steps into the room. He's got an arm keeping him upright against the wall and the other attached to Fred as the tot wipes his face against Alec's pants. He whines against Alec's leg, wanting to be lifted up but knowing Alec can do no such thing. Fred stumbles ahead of Alec and over to Ellie, whining to be held. “Right mad at me for not being able to conjure something to eat from the couch.”

Ellie soothes her son, rubbing his back, and talking him down from his tantrum. Alec looks like he could use a drink and not tea but he can’t have any, not for another two months. Just to make sure another pacemaker doesn’t go awry. Again. So she pulls another mug from the cabinet and watches Daisy insist her father take her chair.

“What were you two talking about?”

“Football-”

“Cosmetics-”

Alec snorts at that, grinning as he shakes his head at the two of them. Ellie doesn’t offer any kind of response other than to give him his tea and smack his head. “Piss off,” she moves back to the counter and pulls the oats down. She pours some into a bowl before smugly turning back to him,” you can wipe that smile off your face, wanker. You’ll be eating oats with Fred instead of the bangers and mash I plan to make in an hour.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t.” His accent is back, the way it’s supposed to be. It’s not slurred or strong because of drugs and a weak body, it’s strong and almost daring. “Miller,” he sees just how serious she is and fakes hurt. “Oats? Really? I’m a growing lad. That may fill up wee Fred-”

“Oi!” Ellie turns and scowls,” shut up, fuckwit. You’re getting your bloody bangers and mash.” She turns back around to the counter and hides her smile. No one pisses her off as he does but… God, that infuriating git, she loves him. She bloody loves him. “Quit your snickering you smug bastard. You’re peeling the potatoes.” His grumble makes her unexplainably happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter for this
> 
> However, I will write other stuff for Broadchurch but someone is going to have to hit me with the ideas because I'm fresh out *inappropriately times finger guns* bitches


End file.
